What should a Rick & Morty anime be like? Anime as a medium, like the multiverses of Rick & Morty, contain multitudes of style, tone, and genre; everyone has a different idea of what anime is because an anime can look and be about anything. Adult Swim was supposedly curious about the potential of what a Rick & Morty anime could be, and around the start of the 2020’s began experimenting with Rick & Morty anime projects, starting with the Samurai & Shogun short which premiered on their action-anime block, Toonami, in late March 2020. This CG, action-heavy Lone Wolf & Cub short took an AU and parody approach that probably more befits what fans expect from a show that heavily references and parodies pop culture like Rick & Morty, but outside of a sequel to this short the other three shorts that followed instead played with the base premise and setting of the main series instead. The only carryover from the Samurai & Shogun shorts into future projects would be that they would be presented with Japanese-language audio with English subtitles produced by Sentai Studios.
While the first Samurai & Shogun was the most successful of the anime shorts in terms of viewership, the next two shorts, directed by Takashi Sano, would clearly be what sold Adult Swim on doing a full-fledged Rick & Morty: The Anime series. Sano has been a veteran animator and storyboard artist in the industry, but only had two major credits as a series director were on Sengoku Basara: End of Judgement in 2014 and the then-recent first-season of Tower of God, both fantasy action-anime were different from Rick & Morty’s sci-fi setting and tone. Even so, Sano’s two shorts, Rick & Morty vs Genocider and Summer meets God (Rick meets Evil), showcased both his appreciation and understanding of Rick & Morty and ability to explore interesting sci-fi and existential concepts through its characters and setting. Genocider focused on the relationship between Rick and Morty and how the two may literally be one in the same in an almost cyclical way. Summer Meets God involves a connection made between Summer and an A.I., as well as Jerry’s nostalgia and yearning to return to the days when Summer was a child and he was closer to her as a parent, and coming to accept that she’s grown up and their relationship has changed. Sano’s shorts depict the relationships between the characters from a standpoint that they have a deep care for one another, and explore them with a great sense of thoughtfulness and maturity.
Sano’s shorts showed he was very interested in the relationship and connection between Rick and Morty, particularly how much Morty trusts and believes in Rick and how much Rick would sacrifice to protect or save Morty. On a broader scale, he used the shorts to explore larger ideas about how far people would go to be together and find each other again out of love, love that crosses even crosses the barriers of space and time, as well as coming to accept and treasure fleeting relationships and connections and accept that, even though they end or change, they still and will always have mattered. He also explored ideas of free will, whether events in people’s lives are fated to turn out a certain way no matter what, and whether that cannot be changed even when aware of the future. Sano’s shorts were more philosophical than comedic, and while they had action scenes were not necessarily action-packed in the crazy-chaotic sakuga sense, so they differed quite a bit tonally and in content from the regular series. His interpretations of the characters differed quite a bit too; Sano’s Rick is much more lax and considerate towards Morty rather than being a cynical jerk who talks down and demeans him, and Morty is portrayed as more innocent, optimistic, and trusting than the neurotic, anxious, and righteous Morty of the show’s later season. But, because the shorts were self-contained, dense, what-if thought experiments that focused in on underexplored themes and elements of the regular series, they were generally appreciated by fans as a different interpretation, and the positive reception to them, and Sano’s own enthusiasm for the Rick & Morty universe, seemingly convinced them to invest in producing a full-fledged Rick & Morty anime series with Sano at the helm as director.
Rick & Morty: The Anime was announced in May 2022, but it wouldn’t be until during the Rick & Morty panel at San Diego Comic Con 2023 where fans would get their first glimpse of the show via its opening sequence, “Love is Entropy,” alongside a message from Sano about his intentions for the show. The opening sequence was intriguing, full of easter eggs and teases for what the story might be about, including its focus on a new character, Elle, depictions of a spacesuit hero version of Morty and a Rick with a mullet, and notable emphasis on the passage of time and time being rewound, with the title of the song itself being a hint towards the themes of the show. Reception to the opening was positive by most fans, who were optimistic about the project. There would be no updates about the show until its own dedicated panel at SDCC last year, which was packed full of fans genuinely curious and excited for the show. At the end of the panel, it was revealed that the entire first episode would premiere that night at the con as part of Adult Swim’s Night of New event outside at their “Pirate Parrrty” area on the marina boardwalk. Adult Swim seemed to have a lot of faith in Rick & Morty: The Anime and really gave it a good promotional push, including with a “Rickmobile” that toured and stopped in several cities over the summer leading up to the premiere, including an appearance at SDCC, which I was lucky enough to encounter over the weekend.
Rick & Morty: The Anime was the second to last show to be shown during the Night of New screening, after Common Side Effects, Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, and Invincible Fight Girl. While reception to the previous three shows by the audience was very engaged and enthusiastic, with lots of laughter and cheers, reception to Rick & Morty: The Anime was a lot more muted. There were only two big laughs during the episode, when Jerry makes a joke about him clogging the toilet and the “rosebud” Citizen Kane parody, but otherwise the crowd watched it with either silent curiosity or confusion at the time-jumping story structure of the episode. After the screening concluded, I took care to overhear fans talking about the show. While most were pretty solidly on board with and excited for the other shows screened, Rick & Morty: The Anime got a more mixed reception, with people not necessarily disliking it but also not particularly keen to watch more. This would portend the reception the show would get from the public at large when it premiered on Adult Swim the following month, though honestly the crowd who watched it at SDCC were still a lot more positive than many others online would be.
As for myself, while I was perplexed by the story structure, particularly because the cold open didn’t seem to connect to and wasn’t revisited in the rest of the episode, I liked the sci-fi concept of jumping between different realities and living out different lifetimes at different points in time, the connections Morty seemed to make with Elle and Frank in these different realities. What particularly touched and intrigued me was the encounter Morty has with a Rick with a mullet who was implied to have lost his Morty, and in a rare bit of bittersweet melancholy from the franchise, seemed to find some muted comfort just seeing Morty again. The first episode of the anime wasn’t what I expected from a Rick & Morty episode, but it was in line from what I’d seen Takashi Sano do with Rick & Morty in the previous shorts, with thematic ideas and connections that would become even more pronounced and clear as the show progressed.
Rick & Morty: The Anime is in large part a longer, more expanded meditation on themes and concepts Sano previously explored in his shorts, exploring the power of the love and connections between people to be able to transcend universes, space, and time, as well as ideas of fate and free will, whether people have a choice in how their lives turn out or are following a predestined course of events. At the center of the show is Elle, a being who sees and experiences time all at once. Elle is an interesting focal point for these themes, as she knows the events of her life are destined to turn out a certain way because she has already experienced them. Because of this, Elle seeks to escape the flow of time and gain true free will and the freedom to make choices without knowing their outcomes, to feel like the decisions she makes matters. What motivates her to do this is her relationship with Morty, and wanting to live in a world in which she can be with Morty without knowing how their relationship will end, to be able to truly and fully live in and experience it in the moment rather than all at once, even if the Morty she’s with isn’t the Morty she fell in love with.
Helping Elle is a jaded and dispirited version of Rick who’s lost his Morty, labeled as “Mullet Rick” due to his long mullet and hair, who understands the futility of trying to break from the flow of time, but out of mourning and desperation for any chance to see his Morty again and fate to change is willing to help Elle achieve her wish even if it means sacrificing his own life and universe in order to do it. Meanwhile, Morty feels an intense connection with Elle after encountering her, despite not having the history with her that his Space Morty counterpart does, and becomes entranced with the idea of her being a part of his life, and just as the series explores how far Elle and Mullet Rick would go and sacrifice out of their love for Morty, the series tests how much Morty is willing to compromise his own morals and forsake others to be with Elle.
What results is a really fascinating relationship between these star-crossed characters as they try to find a solution in which they can live their fullest lives together, finding a sliver of a chance and hope through a rift between different universes, but ultimately finding that, in Evangelion terms, “you can not redo.” But, no matter how short-lived, that connection and love they shared was still meaningful and important, and that even if ill-fated, it’s still beautiful that no matter how many times the universe resets or time rewinds or universes cross, they will find and share time with each other again. These themes of treasuring powerful connections of love found in one’s life, searching for the meaning to the events of your life and recognizing that there is meaning even in the meaningless, and accepting when one’s time together has passed and it’s time to move on to live not for the past of the future but for yourself in the present, are all very thoughtfully explored through the characters of Mullet Rick, Elle, and Morty through the course of the show.
While the story Sano wants to tell through Rick & Morty’s characters and setting is interesting, the way it unfolds, particularly in the early episodes, is never quite as engaging as it should be. We jump into the show in-media res to an event whose significance we don’t really fully understand the significance of until the end of the show. From there, we jump around from the main anime universe Rick & Morty characters in different situations at different points of time, and the timeline of events doesn’t really start to become clear until the midpoint of the show. While it sounds like a lot is going on, and there is when you describe it, it doesn’t feel that way when you’re watching the show because the pace of scenes and individual episode plots moves at a very leisurely pace. It’s a show that requires a lot of patience from the viewer both in the experience of watching it and in piecing the narrative together, but if you’re not intrigued by the story and interested in these versions of the characters, the show lacks the moment to moment rapid-fire humor and crazy action of the original series to keep fans engaged. It also feels like the show really struggles to have enough material for ten full-length episodes, to the point where several and shorter than the normal 22-minute episodes length. The show’s slow and haphazard pacing makes me feel like it would be a more engaging experience and tighter narrative if it were only six to eight episodes instead, or if it would’ve been willing to do more one-off episodes rather than stretch the main storyline across ten.
While the anime uses the characters and setting of Rick & Morty, it never really feels like Rick & Morty. Rick & Morty is foremost a comedy where every other line or moment is a joke, but the anime isn’t really interested in humor outside of a few stray Jerry lines, some of the teaser gags after the credits of the episodes, and flubbed attempts in the English dub to recreate Rick’s burning and Morty’s stuttering. While most people think of action-packed shows when they think of anime, Rick & Morty: The Anime is pretty sparse on action scenes outside of the second and second-to-last episodes, and any given episode of the regular Rick & Morty will have crazier and more elaborate action setpieces than anything that appears in the anime. In general, the main Rick & Morty’s animation is more fluid than most of the anime, and while it sometimes uses its limited animation in creative and stylistic ways like the postcard-memories style stills in the Yakuza drama send-up in the fifth episode, generally the action animation feels pretty slow and functional rather than flashy, and at worst looks weightless and flat, particularly during the CG fight scene between Space Beth and Tammy in the second episode. If you’re looking for sakuga, there’s just sadly not a lot of ambitious or stylistic flourish to be found in the anime.
The anime’s character designs and aesthetic also run atypical of what the general perception is of what anime looks like. There’s not much in the way of stereotypical big colorful eyes, stylish fashion, and sharp features and linework, akin to anime parody designs found in the original series and in the manga. The style the anime adopts is much simpler and looser, and while it looks unique, it also doesn’t look much like what a casual viewer thinks of when they think of anime, and may come across just less interesting as a result, particularly in comparison to the character designs of the main series. The original Rick & Morty boasts deceptively complicated, detailed, and varied character designs, particularly for all the different aliens that appear in each episode. The anime instead takes a much more simplified approach to its designs, with most of the alien characters being very simple and blobby in their shapes, with notable quirks being elongated ovalish or circular heads, small and very spaced out teeth, and loose, thin, limber limbs. While presumably these simplified designs are meant to be easier to animate, the full potential of them is rarely utilized for more than standard movements that appear more limited than in the regular series. The anime does shine in its background art and color direction, creating some very beautiful and atmospheric scenes that do sometimes feel more cinematic that the regular series. Even so, overall the anime comes off far less appealing aesthetically and in its animation than the original series.
What’s most different about the anime is its tone and worldview. The anime is more contemplative and philosophical, it ponders existential questions and moral quandaries. Regular Rick & Morty is much more apathetic and cynical, and would poke fun at even caring about the ideas that Rick & Morty: The Anime earnestly and sincerely explores. Rick & Morty: The Anime’s philosophy is that “there is meaning even in the meaningless,” whereas Rick & Morty’s point of view is mostly that nothing really matters so you shouldn’t worry about it and just do whatever you want. This difference in philosophy is also reflected in the different approaches to storytelling in both shows. While fans are invested in Rick & Morty’s storylines, the series itself is less so, being very scarce with its storyline-focused episodes and preferring doing episodic one-and-done adventures, whereas the anime cares about its ongoing story and having every episode connect to each other; none of this matters vs. all of this matters. This isn’t to say either approach is necessarily better, but Rick & Morty’s cynical and irreverent approach works for it as a comedy, and that is what its fans gravitate towards, enjoy, and expect from it. Despite Sano’s clear love for Rick & Morty evident in the many easter eggs and characters he pulls in from the original, the anime is in many ways the polar opposite of Rick & Morty in its tone, perspective, and messages.
If you’re a fan of Rick & Morty, the only elements the anime really shares with it are the characters and setting. Except it doesn’t really share the same characters, because Sano’s characterizations of them also differ greatly; the Smith family is more functional and supportive of each other, Rick is more laid back and diplomatic towards others, Morty is more earnest and naive, Jerry is treated as less of a loser by the family and portrayed as more good natured and considerate, Beth and Space Beth have more of a rivalry over Rick’s attention and whether which one is the “real” one, and Summer is less opportunistic and self-interested and shown as a child and confident science-savvy partner to Rick in his sci-fi escapades. While these portrayals fit the tone of themes of the anime, they are very different from the immature, insecure, and abrasive characterizations of the characters in the original series.
I personally enjoyed many of these portrayals of the characters, particularly the much expanded role of Space Beth in this anime compared to her very sparse appearances in the regular series. However, they aren’t really the same characters who’ve undergone the same character arcs and development from the original series, and as such are effectively blank slates with very surface-level similarities to their originals in their personalities, histories, and motivations. Sano also tweaks other characters as well, most notably Tammy, who has a change of heart and reunion with Birdperson and Birddaughter that’s a complete departure from her portrayal in the original series, and firmly cements that the anime takes place in its own separate universe even though anime Rick refers to himself as Rick C-137. That latter neglect to distinguish the anime’s universe from the main series’ feels like a missed opportunity and a needless complication to let fans nitpick, since it’s already established there are many multiverses, and it’s very obvious from how events play out in this series that the anime’s characters and universe and the regular series’ cannot be one in the same.
Ultimately, despite borrowing elements and ideas from the original Rick & Morty, the anime is fundamentally a wholly different show. That is probably why in large part why there was a disconnect between so many Rick & Morty fans and the anime, there isn’t enough that’s similar to what they most enjoyed about the series’ humor, tone, stories, and characters. At the same time, if you’re not a Rick & Morty fan, there isn’t enough of a reason to be interested in the anime, and there are so many references and callbacks to the show that a complete newcomer wouldn’t meaningfully understand and appreciate. This results in a series where it’s hard to recommend or say who it’s for. The show just doesn’t deliver on what most people wanted and expected from the idea of a Rick & Morty anime. It’s not Rick & Morty, and despite the anime having its own unique qualities, it ultimately suffers from being attached to and compared with the original series.
Much like the show itself, its Blu-ray release is a product that is hard to say who it’s for. The interior spread and the disc’s cover art look really cool, and one neat feature about the disc’s cover art is that you can actually see an outline of it from the other side of the disc. The disc menu itself is incredibly bare bones, featuring just a static image of the show’s key art, the same that appears on the cover, with a blue menu on the bottom of the screen. There are no separate pages for any of the prompts, not even for episode selection; clicking on them just gives you a simple list of options to scroll through and choose from. All ten episodes of the series, in Japanese and English audio options, are on a single disc with no extra features, not even Takahashi Sano’s previous two Rick & Morty shorts. While the Japanese dub of the series has hard English subtitles for its airings on Adult Swim and Max, there are only closed captioning subtitles for the english dub available on the disc, which you have to use to watch the Japanese dub with any form of subtitles. The show’s opening theme song, “Love is Entropy,” which is sung in Japanese is not subtitled or captioned at all, though the ending theme song, which is sung in English, is. Generally the video quality on the disc is pretty good, albeit with some minor banding issues. There just sadly isn’t anything to look at on the disc besides the show itself.
Unfortunately, the audio is a mixed bag; while the English dub has a lossless presentation, the Japanese track has a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 track. While the audio quality of the Japanese track isn’t necessarily bad, it is quieter and less crisp than the English dub. Which can be a problem, because the show is honestly best watched in Japanese. The Japanese voice actors are the same ones that have been with the show since the beginning, and are able to portray Sano’s version of the characters very convincingly, and their performances carry the dramatic heft and emotionality of several moments in the show, and even landing a few bits of humor.
The English dub produced by Sentai Studios, meanwhile, consists of an entirely new cast of soundalikes from Sentai’s regular VA pool. While performances for the anime’s original characters come off well, particularly Luci Christian’s performance as Elle, the acting for the Smith family is all over the place. Joe Daniels comes off the best as Rick and Jerry, particularly in conveying the jaded and weary attitude of Mullet Rick. Sadly, Gabriel Regojo’s Morty is a huge miss. His Morty voice is very flat and performed without variation, and his attempts to replicate Morty’s whines and stutters just don’t mesh tonally and come off as distracting in otherwise serious scenes and moments, and he was not able to convincingly deliver sincerity and a nuanced range in his emotions through his performance like Keisuke Chiba’s performance of Morty in the Japanese dub. That said, I think more blame is to be laid at the voice direction and scripting of the English dub than the performances of the actors themselves. It feels like there wasn’t enough understanding of the tone of the show and what it was going for, resulting in line deliveries that are either flat or don’t fit as intended, and attempts to inject humor where there wasn’t in the original like having Rick randomly burp or Morty stutter “ah geez” are distracting break aways from the show’s serious sincerity. The inconsistent and flat performances in the dub are enough to derail the experience of watching and becoming invested in the show, and if you want to give the anime an earnest shot and appreciate its fully intended tone and emotionality, I would strongly recommend watching it in Japanese instead.
Rick & Morty: The Anime is a show that will probably only ever appeal to a select few interested in its swings and ambitions. I personally come away from it having enjoyed my time with it. I found myself intrigued by its deviations from the original series, and was willing to give it time to see where it was going, and ultimately came away really appreciating and respecting how Sano used the series as a sandbox to explore themes he was interested in with a sincere message about the power of love and connection shared between people. While I didn’t enjoy every episode equally, I think the overall story it told is more than its sum of its parts and often very emotional and poignant, particularly the show’s final episode, which has a wonderful and touching message about how people connect with and find each other again and can make an impact that matters in another’s life even if their time together is fleeting, and brings the show full-circle to its beginning in a very thoughtful way. I wish this blu-ray release had been given as much thought and care as Takahashi Sano and his team put into the show itself. As is, the blu-ray is probably only most worth it for collector’s and those who aren’t subscribed to Max. Otherwise, for those who don’t feel the need to own physical media of a show that’s readily streaming that’s without bonus features, this release is probably meaningless. But if there’s anything that I took away from and resonated with in Rick & Morty: The Anime, it’s that there’s still meaning in the meaningless.
